Always Wanting What Is Not
by Juanita Dark
Summary: And he, had he always been biding his time?


Title: Always Wanting What Is Not

Author: Juanita Dark

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: Episode III - Revenge Of The Sith

Summary: Anakin, Mustafar, brooding.

Disclaimer: George owns, and he can smite the fangirl fic whenever he wants – but I hope he doesn't.

**Always Wanting What Is Not**

Mustafar was silence. The lakes of fire, the air of ashes, the slithering banks of lava sloughing along black beaches - everything. Every last voice had been silenced and yet they rang in his mind at this odd opportunity, while he waited, waited for them to stop.

What was he feeling now? Still grappling with an unexplainable anger - that it had been so easy? - this thing kept throbbing out of him - a desire to have and control, control his path that had always been set. Always the Chosen, always alone, burdened with his presentiment that nobody knew or cared to understand.

(How could they? He could not share his way, just be. Just being who he was had seen so many things attached to him - a man who was to be, it was said - without attachments.)

The Jedi way would be to let go. To let go - and yet, even they still tried to survive. At the Temple, the children had struggled to survive; every Jedi connected by the command of Order 66 had not gone quietly or lightly - not from what he'd heard, not from what he'd felt. Bravely fought, they had, as Master Yoda might say - as they had when they'd fought at his side on Geonosis. Master Windu too had struggled to survive although in his mind - Anakin was sure - he fought against metaphors, symbols, archetypes and grand schemed vendettas - a creeping tide of Sith. And yet fight against it all he had, the big man had still fallen - quite aways - all the way down.

And he, had he always been biding his time?

That he'd wondered then what he had been doing, that he'd felt... tormented by his choice to send the second highest ranking Master Jedi on his way was something he now viewed with an amusing detachment. He could turn it this way or that in his mind and still see it the same way - but with a gathering distaste that made him clench and unclench the black-gloved fist of his mechanical hand. In the end, they all asked for his help - it took the lowest common denominator but they asked. And he knew they would ask again. And again, and again and again until there was nothing left. Not of him, not of the way he was.

He had never minded this, even as a child - his was the way of the giver, as had been that of his mother before him. And yet his way, the river of calm that seemed to find it's way through Shmi like infinite patience, like an old understanding, found on it's way through him in ripples and eddies and steep, jagged drops. It did not pool and flow and continue on, it swirled and frothed and sped forward, carrying those he loved with it widening the distance between them all - until it was down to this.

And now, he was tired, and yet entirely awake. (Always so alive before you are truly...)

He could not see but feel the pinpricks of the stars above Mustafar's spurting fire, above Mustafar's far-reaching heat, and yet, above it all, he felt her and his child, the fear that floated around her in something like pain, but not yet, not yet. Such terrible anger he felt, and yet his face was wet with tears.

That japor snippet he gave her, why did she wear it still?

He had asked her that on Naboo, just to hear what she'd say, just to tease her. It was funny how easily he could disrupt her practiced manners and regal standing. And he, who was never good with words (much better with his hands as she found out later). He had always found that words, in their place were very fine but actions suited him better - the pain of his melodramatic outpourings to Padme when he had first guarded her and wanted her, and wanted even more to protect himself from his own feelings, from her rejection - had never left him.

His love for her was so much like need, and if unreciprocated so much like pain.

The japor reminded him of this, it was the toy of a child and it still clung with his childish affection, that naivete - he had hoped then that she'd wear it forever. Padme, the handmaiden, the Queen in disguise. But she wore it too close to her heart.

She told him as much and he came to understand it's place. Perhaps if the child was a girl - as he thought it was - she would pass it on to her; another younger, wilder version of Padme running beside the lakes of Naboo, laughing - perhaps never knowing, never having to know, the price her parents paid for their love.

He had bowed so far, so low, at Palpatine's knee for this - sadly knowing, even then, it couldn't last. Knowing that he'd be forever indepted to his new Master. Knowing all depts must be paid. Their rapprochement was fuelled by the needs being served, and yet he was growing in power and volatility as the seconds meted by. He would soon, as the Jedi learned, be too dangerous, too much of a threat. He saw this and knew then his Master would die at his hand as surely he stood now watching the fires lift high - knowing now they were nothing like that ones that had been inside him from the day he was born.

He had, from that moment forward, had so much death to give - and all for the want of a life.

He missed Padme now, her presence, her collectedness, her head for heights. He was changing, he was rising up when he wanted so much his feet on the ground - and he couldn't stop himself. He could see it now - how he was always to be this, always to come to this - and he found no fondness in her memory suddenly, only the desire for her touch, for her at his side.

So much hate and anger abided in him now and he needed her there that he could stand it. Here, with nothing between them.

And he felt her coming, felt her seeking him from the corners of his mind, willing him to be the relief she so desperately needed. He suddenly felt her need. It was so great, so longing that it pained him, made his head spin before he righted it, added to all the voices calling to him across one world to another - crying for safety, for sanctuary, for peace.

That was the prophecy, was it not? That he would bring peace.

But now he feared there would never be such a thing. Now he had fought, not for an abstract honour that brought so few rewards but for her survival. It may have been selfish but any desire for life could have been seen as such. He needed her to go on, and yet the galaxy churned for something more of him. Something he could no longer give. He had stepped away from that path, stepped away his 'balancing' role - into a world so unforgiving - and yet, he was only being the man he had been all along.

He closed his eyes and the fires still flared against his mind. He could not lose but how could he win?

He remembered now, breathing her, breathing her as their bodies lay against each other and starting to say: "I would give my life..." but knowing that giving his life would in the same way take her from him, and that with the hindsight he then had he would never again step away but only draw her near. Stepping away had cost him his mother, had cost him so much of his soul. And she, wrapped around him so, concerned at his change of expression, protested for a moment, at him holding her so tight she couldn't breathe.

He would decide - and what he chose would always be on the way to her.

Opening his eyes he felt himself again, and the monstrous Mustafar no longer pained him to look at. Recognising the hum and whine of the miscellaneous droids and mechanicals, the last Neimodian scream, the last alien curse, the last crash of a falling body - that Mustafar air would soon have decompOsing - were truly gone from him, a lifetime away. He would face her here, when she arrived. He had been changed but she would love him, and they would embrace - and they would have their peace, and the world would know it, as would their child. They would know because would not again fail he would make it that way.

He would bring them peace.

fin -


End file.
